From the buzz of activity in the East China Sea to the relative quiet of Somalia’s piracy afflicted waters, a new map has revealed the world’s shipping activity in mesmerising detail.

The interactive map provides a fascinating glimpse into hows these shipping vessels navigate through vast oceans as they bring their valuable cargoes to port – but it also serves a more serious purpose.

Researchers want the map to shed light on just how large a carbon footprint is created by the world’s cargo ships. It is estimated that a single large container ship can emit pollutants equivalent to that of 50 million cars.

The issue we were following was the levels of greenhouse gas emissions from cargo ships and their pollution impact,’ Tristan Smith, a reader at University College London’s Energy Institute, told Motherboard.

The data points show the movements of the world’s commercial shipping fleet over the course of 2012. It also shows their fuel consumption every hour.

Shipmap’s website says that ‘billions of tonnes of ships and cargo rely on burning massive quantities of bunker fuel’.

This results in the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide, which is the main driver of global warming.

Emissions from international shipping for that year were estimated to be 796 million tonnes CO2 which is more than the whole of the UK, Canada or Brazil emit in a year.

That’s 2.18 million tonnes CO2 per day or 90,868 tonnes CO2 per hour.

To create the map, researchers at UCL Energy Institute and Kiln estimated emissions from five different ship types and plotted 250 million data points.

The data is based on hundreds of millions of individually recorded ship positions; plotting all of these at once shows the extraordinary extent of modern shipping’s reach

From the buzz of activity in the East China Sea to the relative quiet of Somalia’s piracy afflicted waters, a new map has revealed the world’s shipping activity. Pictured are the shipping routes for various cargo ships around the world in 2012. Red represents huge tankers, blue shows dry bulk ships, yellow show ships that carry manufactured products, Green gas bulk and purple shows ships carrying vehicles

It was pulled from exactEarth, a company that provides location-based information on maritime traffic, and the Clarksons Research UK World Fleet Register, which registers the world’s fleet

Based only on ship movements and without a background map, the world’s coastlines are clearly defined, with plenty of variation in ship activity, including in areas you might not expect them, such as the Arctic and Antarctic.

The map clearly shows the most crucial shipping thoroughfares of all: the canals linking different bodies of water, such as the Panama Canal, which opened a century ago to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.

It also shows the even older and busier Suez Canal which saw 17,000 transits in 2012 alone.

To observe the flows of the global economy in more detail, users can distinguish between five different ship types.

The red dots represent huge tankers, the blue dots show dry bulk ships that move cargo like ores, and the yellow dots show ships that carry manufactured products.

The interactive map provides a fascinating glimpse into hows these shipping vessels navigate through vast oceans as they bring their valuable cargoes to port. The shipping routes around the US are shown here. New Orleans, Houston and Large Angeles appear to be the hub for huge tankers

The dots represent the cargo vessels approximate locations around the world on 23 February 2012. Shipmap’s website says that ‘billions of tonnes of ships and cargo rely on burning massive quantities of bunker fuel’. This results in the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide, which is the main driver of global warming

The map clearly shows the most crucial shipping thoroughfares of all: the canals linking different bodies of water, such as the Panama Canal, which opened a century ago to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean

Green shows gas bulk and purple shows ships carrying vehicles.

It clearly shows the movements of tankers which ship oil from massive terminals in the Middle East or from offshore rigs in West Africa and elsewhere.

It also shows dry bulk carriers moving aggregates, ores and coal from mines and quarries, many of which are found in Australia and Latin America.

Many of these raw materials are shipped to manufacturing regions to make finished goods which are themselves moved back across the ocean in container ships.

UCL-Energy researchers estimated that the map shows roughly 50,000 cargo ships, some of which are over quarter of a mile long.

The next step, they say, is to update their map based on newer data.

To create the map, researchers at UCL Energy Institute estimated emissions from five different ship types and plotted 250 million data points. The data is based on hundreds of millions of individually recorded ship positions; plotting all of these at once shows the extraordinary extent of modern shipping’s reach. Shown here is shipping movement across the Indian ocean

Shown here are the major European pots with the red dots representing huge tankers. The map clearly shows the movements of tankers which ship oil from massive terminals in the Middle East or from offshore rigs in West Africa and elsewhere.

Around 15,000 vessels would switch to diesel with 10 times less sulphur under proposed rules

Over 15,000 diesel-powered vessels could be forced to use fuel with 90 per cent less sulphur, after a trial found the cleaner alternative had no impact on vessels’ mechanics or consumption, under a government proposal.

However, some operators fear that the cleaner diesel will push up their running costs – despite government assurances to the contrary.

The proposal will be tabled to the legislature this year and will force operators of vessels, including ferries, high speed boats, barges, tug boats and cross border vessels, to use diesel containing no more than 0.05 per cent sulphur from 2014.

The cap is 10 times stricter than the current 0.5 per cent limit on sulphur in marine diesel.

However, the upgraded fuel still has 50 times more sulphur than the Euro V diesel being used for road transport. That diesel only has 0.001 per cent sulphur.

In a paper submitted to lawmakers yesterday, environment officials said a trial completed in January this year found the cleaner fuel would not damage older engines.

The trial, conducted by University of Hong Kong specialists, also confirmed there was no significant change in fuel consumption or power output after the switch.

Officials said there would not be a substantial difference in costs, as their most updated figures showed the low sulphur diesel was just seven cents per litre more expensive.

They quoted oil companies’ forecasts that the price differential could be even narrower in the future.

Johnny Leung Tak-hing, general manager of Star Ferry, however, remained sceptical over the fuel costs. “The industry is worried whether the seven cents difference is true or not … we hope the government can give us more guarantees and data to support their claims,” he said.

Leung said the government had also tested local vessels on ultra low sulphur diesel, which had a sulphur content of 0.005 per cent in 2001 but concluded that it was too expensive. The government at that time pledged the ultra-low-sulphur diesel would cost just 20 cents more per litre, but the difference rose to around HK$1 eventually, he said.

Officials said the fuel market was a free one and there was nothing the government could do to control price setting.

Leung also said some diesel vessel operators also wanted the government to subsidise them replacing old engines.

“The road transport operators are given subsidies to replace their vehicles. But we have got not even a single cent,” he said.

The Environmental Protection Department estimated that the switch could reduce sulphur dioxide emissions by 3,219 tonnes a year, representing a 19 per cent reduction of the marine sector’s total emissions in 2011.

The marine sector, including ocean-going vessels, has overtaken power plants as the largest source of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and respirable suspended particles.

Without curbs, emissions from ships will form a larger fraction of the global total in future

Greenhouse gas emissions from shipping should be included in the UK’s climate change budgets, the Committee on Climate Change has recommended.

Under the Climate Change Act, the UK is committed to cutting all its climate-changing emissions by 80% – based on 1990 levels – by 2050.

But international aviation and shipping emissions are not currently included.

If the government agrees, it will mean tighter targets for other sectors such as motoring and electricity generation.

“Shipping could account for up to 10% of emissions allowed under the 2050 target, and that says this is a material issue,” said Committee on Climate Change (CCC) chief executive David Kennedy.

The CCC’s report says there are many ways for shipping to curb its carbon footprint – by improving fuel efficiency, deploying kites or sails, or allocating vessels more efficiently.

Some companies are already developing such techniques.

Tight budgets

The first four carbon budgets, stretching to 2027, have already been agreed

The CCC has recommended – and the government has adopted – a series of carbon budgets setting down the maximum scale of greenhouse gas emissions that the UK can emit over successive five-year periods.

They are designed as staging posts on the way to the 2050 target.

If the government does agree to include shipping and maybe aviation in the budgets, then constraints on other sectors must become tighter.

“If you include shipping in the 2050 target – especially if you throw in aviation as well – that implies full decarbonisation of electricity, heat and surface vehicles,” said Mr Kennedy.

“And if the ambition is full decarbonisation [of those sectors], then we need to make good progress in the next two decades, otherwise we can’t achieve the 2050 target.”

The committee will put its formal recommendation on shipping and aviation to the government next year, and the government says that it will respond “in due course”. Under law, it must decide by the end of 2012.

Any solution must… avoid potentially damaging an industry that is vital to the future prosperity of the United Kingdom”

End Quote David Balston UK Chamber of Shipping

The committee’s analysts spent three months attempting to calculate UK shipping emissions “from the bottom up”, scouring records of 150,000 shipping movements into and out of UK ports by vessels including cargo ships, tugs, fishing vessels, ferries and cruise liners.

It believes the UK should be responsible for half of all the emissions associated with ships entering or leaving national ports – the other half being borne by whichever countries lie at the other end of the journeys.

Having crunched the numbers, the committee concludes that the UK’s share is 12-16 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) per year.

Globally, shipping emissions are growing by 3-4% per year, and could account for a quarter of all the world’s greenhouse gas output by 2050.

The International Maritime Organisation agreed earlier this year on a programme to progressively increase vessels’ fuel efficiency.

The CCC is basically saying the UK should lead an international effort to go further and faster down this track.

The UK Chamber of Shipping, which worked with the CCC on its analysis, welcomed the conclusion, but warned of potential impacts on competitiveness.

“Eco-ships”, such as Japanese line NYK’s 2030 concept, could cut emissions by 70%

“This work is hugely important,” said David Balston, the organisation’s director for safety and environment.

“We do stress, however, that any solution must be global rather than regional to avoid distorting world trade and potentially damaging an industry that is vital to the future prosperity of the United Kingdom.”

Mr Kennedy also suggested the priority was to end up with a global system of carrots and sticks for decarbonising shipping, and urged UK ministers to press for such a deal at and after the UN climate talks that begin in South Africa at the end of the month.

If international action proved impossible, the European Union would almost certainly introduce measure for traffic in and out of European ports, he said.

Environment group WWF, together with Oxfam, recently issued a report recommending that some kind of global shipping tax be used to raise some of the $100bn per year of climate-related cash that rich countries are committed to providing to the developing world by 2020.

“International shipping has, like aviation, been left out of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for too long, said Keith Allott, WWF-UK’s head of climate change.

“An international deal to address shipping could be a win-win – addressing a rapidly growing source of emissions and at the same time providing a valuable source of funding for tackling climate change in the developing world.”